• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.629-640
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• 2019

The investigation of retaining wall structures behavior under dynamic loads is considered as one of important parts for designing such structures. Generally, the performance of these structures is under the influence of the environment conditions and their geometry. The aim of this research is to design retaining wall structures based on smart and optimal systems. The use of accuracy and speed to assess the structures under different conditions is one of the important parts sought by designers. Therefore, optimal and smart systems are able to have better addressing these problems. Using numerical and coding methods, this research investigates the retaining wall structure design under different dynamic conditions. More than 9500 models were constructed and considered for modelling design. These designs include height and thickness of the wall, soil density, rock density, soil friction angle, and peak ground acceleration (PGA) variables. Accordingly, a neural network system was developed to establish an appropriate relationship between data to obtain safety factor (SF) of retaining walls under different seismic conditions. Different parameters were analyzed and the effect of each parameter was assessed separately. According to these analyses, the structure optimization was performed to increase the SF values. The optimal and smart design showed that under different PGA conditions, the structure performance can be appropriately improved while utilization of the initial (or basic) parameters leads to the structure failure. Therefore, by increasing accuracy and speed, smart methods could improve the retaining structure performance in controlling the wall failure. The intelligent design process of this study can be applied to some other civil engineering applications such as slope stability.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.617-627
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• 2018

After earthquakes FRP sheets are often used for the rehabilitation of damaged Reinforced Concrete (RC) beamcolumn connections. Connections with minor to moderate damage are often dealt with by applying FRP sheets after a superficial repair of the cracks using resin paste or high strength mortar but without infusion of thin resin solution under pressure into the cracking system. This technique is usually adopted in these cases due to the fast and easy-to-apply procedure. The experimental investigation reported herein aims at evaluating the effectiveness of repairing the damaged beam-column connections using FRP sheets after a meticulous but superficial repair of their cracking system using resin paste. The investigation comprises experimental results of 10 full scale beam-column joint specimens; five original joints and the corresponding retrofitted ones. The repair technique has been applied to RC joints with different joint reinforcement arrangements with minor to severe damage brought about by cyclic loading for the purposes of this work. Aiming at quantitative concluding remarks about the effectiveness of the repair technique, data concerning response loads, loading stiffness and energy absorption values have been acquired and commented upon. Furthermore, comparisons of damage index values and values of equivalent viscous damping, as obtained during the test of the original specimens, with the corresponding ones observed in the loading of the repaired ones have also been evaluated and commented. Based on these comparisons, it is deduced that the technique under investigation can be considered to be a rather satisfactory repair technique for joints with minor to moderate damage taking into account the rapid, convenient and easy-to-apply character of its application.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.473-491
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• 2022

The research investigates experimentally the effect of confinement on structural behavior at the ends of beam-column in reinforced concrete (RC) frames. In the experimental study, five specimens consisting of 1/3-scaled RC frames having single-bay, representing the traditional deficiencies of existing buildings constructed without receiving proper engineering service is investigated. The RC frame specimens were produced to represent most of the existing buildings in Turkey that have damage potential. To decrease the probable damage to the existing buildings exposed to earthquakes, the carbon Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) strengthening technique (fully wrapping) was used on the ends of the RC frame elements to increase the energy dissipation and deformation capacity. The specimens were tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading with constant axial loads. They were constructed satisfying the weak column-strong beam condition and consisting of low-strength concrete, such as compressive strength of 15 MPa. The test results were compared and evaluated considering stiffness, strength, energy dissipation capacity, structural damping, ductility, and damage propagation in detail. Comprehensive investigations of these experimental results reveal that the strengthening of a brittle frame with fully-TRM wrapping with non-anchored was effective in increasing the stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation capacities of RC bare frames. It was also observed that the frame-only-retrofitting with an infill wall is not enough to increase the ductility capacity. In this case, both the frame and infill wall must be retrofitted with TRM composite to increase the stiffness, lateral load carrying, ductility and energy dissipation capacities of RC frames. The presented strengthening method can be an alternative strengthening technique to enhance the seismic performance of existing or moderately damaged RC buildings.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.437-454
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• 2022

Elliptic-braced simple resisting frame as a new lateral bracing system installed in the middle bay of frame in building facades has been recently introduced. This system not only creates a problem for opening space from the architectural viewpoint but also improves the structural behavior. Despite the researches on the seismic performance of lateral bracing systems, there are few studies performed on the effect of the stiffness parameters on the elastic story drift and calculation of period in simple braced steel frames. To overcome this shortcoming, in this paper, for the first time, an analytical solution is presented for calculating elastic lateral stiffness in a simple steel frame equipped with elliptic brace subjected to lateral load. In addition, for the first time, in this study, a precise formulation has been developed to evaluate the elastic stiffness variation in a steel frame equipped with a two-dimensional single-story single-span elliptic brace using strain energy and Castigliano's theorem. Thus, all the effective factors, including axial and shear loads as well as bending moments of elliptic brace could be considered. At the end of the analysis, the lateral stiffness can be calculated by an improved and innovative relation through the energy method based on the geometrical properties of the employed sections and specification of the used material. Also, an equivalent element of an elliptic brace was presented for the ease of modeling and use in linear designs. Application of the proposed relation have been verified through a variety of examples in OpenSees software. Based on the results, the error percentage between the elastic stiffness derived from the developed equations and the numerical analyses of finite element models was very low and negligible.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.47-58
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• 2007

The usage of Integral abutment bridges has been increased worldwide because of reducing bridge maintenance costs and resisting seismic loads. Although these attributes make the integral abutment bridge an increasingly popular choice, back-abutment interaction issues remain unresolved. Hence, the earth pressure behavior of an integral abutment bridge having 90 m long PSC beam bridge for the first time in Korea was analyzed by conducting long term monitoring in this study. Based on this study, the results were as follows; the ratio of maximum passive movement to the abutment height (H) of 0.0027 and the maximum passive earth pressure coefficient of 4.8 were developed at 0.82H from the bottom of the abutment during summer season. During winter season, the ratio of maximum active movement to H of 0.0011 and the maximum active earth pressure coefficient of 0.7 were developed at the same location as in summer season. The new earth pressure distributions having a trapezoid type were proposed based on this study.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.90 no.3
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• pp.313-323
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• 2024

Most of existing buildings in Mexico City are made of reinforced concrete (RC), however, it has been shown that they are very susceptible to narrow-band long duration ground motions. In recent years, the use of dual systems composed by Buckling Restrained Braces (BRB) has increased due to its high energy dissipation capacity under reversible cyclical loads. Therefore, in this work the behavior of RC buildings with BRB is studied in order to know their performance, specifically, the energy distribution through height and response transformation factors between the RC and simplified systems are estimated. For this propose, seven RC buildings with different heights were designed according to the Mexico City Seismic Design Provisions (MCSDP), in addition, equivalent single degree of freedom (SDOF) systems were obtained. Incremental dynamic analyses on the buildings under 30 narrow-band ground motions in order to compute the relationship between normalized hysteretic energy, maximum inter-story drift and roof displacement demands were performed. The results shown that the entire structural frames participate in energy dissipation and their distribution is independent of the global ductility. The results let propose energy distribution equations through height. Finally, response transformation factors between the SDOF and multi degree of freedom (MDOF) systems were developed aimed to propose a new energy-based approach of BRB reinforced concrete buildings.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.399-406
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• 2012

Beam-column joints are generally recognized as the critical regions in the moment resisting reinforced concrete (RC) frames subjected to both lateral and vertical loads. As a result of severe lateral load such as seismic loading, the joint region is subjected to horizontal and vertical shear forces whose magnitudes are many times higher than in column and adjacent beam. Consequently, much larger bond and shear stresses are required to sustain these magnified forces. The critical deterioration of potential shear strength in the joint area should not occur until ductile capacity of adjacent beams reach the design demand. In this study, a method was provided to predict the deformability of reinforced concrete beam-column joints failing in shear after the plastic hinges developed at both ends of the adjacent beams. In order to verify the deformability estimated by the proposed method, an experimental study consisting of three joint specimens with varying tensile reinforcement ratios was carried out. The result between the observed and predicted behavior of the joints showed reasonably good agreement.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.377-387
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• 2014

This study mainly treats a new type of the bracing friction damper system, which is able to minimize structural damage under earthquake loads. The slotted bolt holes are placed on the shear faying surfaces with an intention to dissipate considerable amount of friction energy. The superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) wire strands are installed crossly between two plates for the purpose of enhancing recentering force that are able to reduce permanent deformation occurring at the friction damper system. The smart recentering friction damper system proposed in this study can be expected to reduce repair cost as compared to the conventional damper system because the proposed system mitigates the inter-story drift of the entire frame structure. The response mechanism of the proposed damper system is firstly investigated in this study, and then numerical analyses are performed on the component spring models calibrated to the experimental results. Based on the numerical analysis results, the seismic performance of the recentering friction damper system with respect to recentering capability and energy dissipation are investigated before suggesting optimal design methodology. Finally, nonlinear dynamic analyses are conducted by using the frame models designed with the proposed damper systems so as to verify superior performance to the existing damper systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 2017

One of the most reliable and simplest tools for structural vibration control in civil engineering is Tuned Mass Damper, TMD. Provided that the frequency and damping parameters of these dampers are tuned appropriately, they can reduce the vibrations of the structure through their generated inertia forces, as they vibrate continuously. To achieve the optimal parameters of TMD, many different methods have been provided so far. In old approaches, some formulas have been offered based on simplifying models and their applied loadings while novel procedures need to model structures completely in order to obtain TMD parameters. In this paper, with regard to the nonlinear decision-making of fuzzy systems and their enough ability to cope with different unreliability, a method is proposed. Furthermore, by taking advantage of both old and new methods a fuzzy system is designed to be operational and reduce uncertainties related to models and applied loads. To design fuzzy system, it is required to gain data on structures and optimum parameters of TMDs corresponding to these structures. This information is obtained through modeling MDOF systems with various numbers of stories subjected to far and near field earthquakes. The design of the fuzzy systems is performed by three methods: look-up table, the data space grid-partitioning, and clustering. After that, rule weights of Mamdani fuzzy system using the look-up table are optimized through genetic algorithm and rule weights of Sugeno fuzzy system designed based on grid-partitioning methods and clustering data are optimized through ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System). By comparing these methods, it is observed that the fuzzy system technique based on data clustering has an efficient function to predict the optimal parameters of TMDs. In this method, average of errors in estimating frequency and damping ratio is close to zero. Also, standard deviation of frequency errors and damping ratio errors decrease by 78% and 4.1% respectively in comparison with the look-up table method. While, this reductions compared to the grid partitioning method are 2.2% and 1.8% respectively. In this research, TMD parameters are estimated for a 15-degree of freedom structure based on designed fuzzy system and are compared to parameters obtained from the genetic algorithm and empirical relations. The progress up to 1.9% and 2% under far-field earthquakes and 0.4% and 2.2% under near-field earthquakes is obtained in decreasing respectively roof maximum displacement and its RMS ratio through fuzzy system method compared to those obtained by empirical relations.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2012

New generation of tall and complex buildings systems are now introduced that are reflective of the latest development in materials, design, sustainability, construction, and IT technologies. While the complexity in design is being overcome by the availability and advances in structural analysis tools and readily advanced software, the design of these buildings are still reliant on minimum code requirements that yet to be validated in full scale. The involvement of the author in the design and construction planning of Burj Khalifa since its inception until its completion prompted the author to conceptually develop an extensive survey and real-time structural health monitoring program to validate all the fundamental assumptions mad for the design and construction planning of the tower. The Burj Khalifa Project is the tallest structure ever built by man; the tower is 828 meters tall and comprises of 162 floors above grade and 3 basement levels. Early integration of aerodynamic shaping and wind engineering played a major role in the architectural massing and design of this multi-use tower, where mitigating and taming the dynamic wind effects was one of the most important design criteria established at the onset of the project design. Understanding the structural and foundation system behaviors of the tower are the key fundamental drivers for the development and execution of a state-of-the-art survey and structural health monitoring (SHM) programs. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to discuss the execution of the survey and real-time structural health monitoring programs to confirm the structural behavioral response of the tower during construction stage and during its service life; the monitoring programs included 1) monitoring the tower's foundation system, 2) monitoring the foundation settlement, 3) measuring the strains of the tower vertical elements, 4) measuring the wall and column vertical shortening due to elastic, shrinkage and creep effects, 5) measuring the lateral displacement of the tower under its own gravity loads (including asymmetrical effects) resulting from immediate elastic and long term creep effects, 6) measuring the building lateral movements and dynamic characteristic in real time during construction, 7) measuring the building displacements, accelerations, dynamic characteristics, and structural behavior in real time under building permanent conditions, 8) and monitoring the Pinnacle dynamic behavior and fatigue characteristics. This extensive SHM program has resulted in extensive insight into the structural response of the tower, allowed control the construction process, allowed for the evaluation of the structural response in effective and immediate manner and it allowed for immediate correlation between the measured and the predicted behavior. The survey and SHM programs developed for Burj Khalifa will with no doubt pioneer the use of new survey techniques and the execution of new SHM program concepts as part of the fundamental design of building structures. Moreover, this survey and SHM programs will be benchmarked as a model for the development of future generation of SHM programs for all critical and essential facilities, however, but with much improved devices and technologies, which are now being considered by the author for another tall and complex building development, that is presently under construction.